The present disclosure relates to a post-processing apparatus, an image forming apparatus, and a folding apparatus, which are capable of folding a sheet such as a sheet-like image forming medium.
There is a post-processing apparatus that is connectable to the main body of an image forming apparatus such as a copy machine or a multifunction device. The post-processing apparatus performs predetermined post-processes on sheets (or a bundle of sheets) taken out of the image forming apparatus main body. The post-processes include, for instance, a punching process of the sheets, a stapling process of the sheet bundle, and a folding process of the sheets (sheet bundle).
The post-processing apparatus having a function of the folding process is equipped with a blade that comes into contact with the sheets (sheet bundle) to bend the sheets (sheet bundle), and a roller pair that receives the bent sheets (sheet bundle) so as to be sandwiched along with the blade to make a fold.
Here, in the folding process, the blade may be loaded and damaged depending on a material or number of the sheets (sheet bundle).
For this reason, there is proposed an image forming apparatus equipped with a clutch means that converts the roller pair into a rotatable state in a driven way with the blade and the sheets (sheet bundle) inserted between the rollers.
Further, there is also proposed an image forming apparatus configured to be able to adjust a contact pressure between the rollers in the state in which the blade and the sheets (sheet bundle) are inserted between the rollers.
However, in such image forming apparatuses, the blade may be damaged. In this case, the post-processing apparatus stops the process operation in the state in which the blade is inserted between the rollers. A workload for returning from this state back to a normal state is very great.